


Wind Churns the Blood Which Binds Us

by Darkflame1808



Series: Whumptober 2019 [5]
Category: Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds (2015), Thunderbirds are go!
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Brothers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, John on earth!!, Major Character Injury, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, Rescue Missions, Sibling Bonding, TW: Blood, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkflame1808/pseuds/Darkflame1808
Summary: John and Virgil attend a tornado site, but in the middle of being rescuers, one becomes the rescuee.
Relationships: Alan Tracy & John Tracy, John Tracy & Virgil Tracy, Virgil Tracy & Alan Tracy
Series: Whumptober 2019 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684582
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know, it's from last year. But I am slowly posting them here, I just forget. Also, for anyone holding out on my Voltron fic.... apologies for the long wait, but it may continue. I've revisited it a few times, but have struggled to write. Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, Thunderbirds!!
> 
> I don't own Thunderbirds, I'm just here to write fun (hurty) stories. Enjoy :)

For the first time in what felt like forever, Virgil and John were on a mission together. This only happened because John was down from 5 for a bit, much to his chagrin. Alan was up there at the moment, learning how to interact and work with EOS and to train to be able to eventually help John on 5. The training had been Brains’ idea after seeing John come down from 5 for a break and having some of the darkest bags Brains had ever seen under his eyes. 

Which landed the two brothers in this situation.

It was tornado season, and a massive F-4 tornado had ripped through the town of Stinnett, Texas, completely destroying most of the housing and infrastructure in the area, and endangering many people. International Rescue was deployed, and John chose to take Gordon’s place with Virgil, claiming he wanted to do some ground work.

So off the two went to the US. Upon arrival, the brothers were able to assess the surroundings and the new additions from the tornado. Once on the ground they coordinated with the rescue crews already there and sorted out what they were doing. Both of them were sent on search and recovery, either of bodies or of living people. 

Virgil wore the Jaws of Life and John navigated through the desecrated town. Their plan was simple; John would pick up lifesigns in the demolished buildings as anyone alive had priority over body recovery. Virgil would then move any rubble or debris trapping the rescuee and John would swoop in from behind him and help the rescuees, or sometimes have to drag them out. If any needed medical attention, John would secure them to a backboard and get them to Virgil. 

They hadn’t encountered anyone that needed more than that.

And that was about to change.

“Over here, Virgil!” John called out, waving his older brother over. The whirring of his exosuit alerted John to his arrival after helping a mother with a three year old that was crying and she herself was sporting a sprained ankle form where it had been trapped in a support structure. The woman and her child had been quickly seen to by Virgil who had then sent her to one of the paramedic tents in the area. 

“There’s three lifesigns below the rubble, but one of them is steadily dropping,” Alan reported in their ears. “You guys need to get down there.”

“F.A.B.” They both responded. 

They immediately got moving, Virgil removing piece by piece, calculating what next to remove to ensure that the rubble doesn’t collapse onto the trapped people. 

Eventually, he removed the top piece of rubble that was trapping the people below them, spilling light down into the space they had. 

Two people sat hunched over, one with sandy blond hair that resembled that of a surfer, and the other had straight black hair that fell down to the middle of her back. Between them was a boy on his back. He looked to be about fourteen or so. His head lay in the girl’s lap, the top of it adorned with mousy brown hair that lay in curls across his face and splayed across the girl’s legs. His legs lay across the other man’s lap, one very obviously broken. 

The boy was unconscious where he lay, and didn’t stir as the light from outside filled the dark hole. Virgil motioned for John to switch with him so that he could focus on moving the rock away from the hole the kids were in. The eldest of them- the conscious boy- could’ve been no older than eighteen. The girl looked about sixteen or seventeen, Virgil wasn’t sure.

John crouched down beside the hole and looked down into it. “Please stay calm. This is International Rescue. We’re here to help,” he called. “Can you tell me what happened and your guys’ medical status’?”

The blond boy responded. “When the tornado struck, we were in the library, and it almost got lifted, and did a bit I think, but we weren’t going in circles or anything. Then we got slammed into the ground, and everything just started crumbling on us. Jack got hit in the head by one of the concrete chunks going through the air, and Crystal was hit in the side by something similar. And I think Jack’s leg was stuck under one of the shelves, and as he fell with the gravity, it broke his leg. I didn’t get hit with anything.”

“That’s super helpful! Thanks! We’ll get you out first. What’s your name?”

“Mason!”

“Okay, Mason. My brother is just setting up a harness now. Once he has it secure we’ll lower it to you, then you need to clip yourself into the harness. Got that?”

“What do I do about Jack’s leg that’s on me?”

“Is there a pillow near you from one of the couches?” John replied, checking on Virgil’s progress with the line. 

“Yeah. You want me to switch?”

“Yeah, that’d be perfect. We’re just sending the line in now, so get ready to go.”

Virgil came over- his exosuit having been stripped- with the line in hand. “Ready?”

“Yeah. You’re gonna have to go in to get both the girl and the other kid out. One got hit in the side with rubble, so possible rib fractures and risk of internal bleeding or lung collapse. The other kid is out cold.”

“Okay. Let’s get this one out and go from there.”

It was relatively simple getting Mason out of the hole. He easily clipped the harness on and the mechanical winch brought him out fairly quickly. Then, Virgil attached himself to the harness and lowered himself into the small hole. 

He secured Jack with a neck brace and spine support, then moved him off of Crystal. After a quick inspection of her ribs and side, he secured her into a special harness for injuries such as her obviously broken ribs (he could almost see the fractures). The next one was more difficult. 

Virgil checked the boy’s vitals again and then checked the brace he had set for his back and neck before he moved to the broken leg.

Blood was pouring down the side of the leg from where the bone had protruded through the skin. Great, a compound fracture. Just what Virgil needed.

What he needed to do was secure it. He could get it set once they were out of the hole. 

With some quick thinking Virgil used the splint he had for a regular broken leg and split it in half, then strapped one half to Jack’s thigh, and the other to his calf. He did the same with the other brace he had, but to the other side of the kid’s leg. He then tied it all and secured it with bandages and tape before getting him hooked into a harness that would support him as he was lifted out of the hole. 

Once the three kids were out, it was time for Virgil’s retrieval.

Which is where it all went wrong.

Right as the line was sent down to the medic, the roof gave a threatening jolt. Before he could react, Virgil found himself buried under rubble, without space to breathe and a burning pain going through one of his thighs and one through his lower abdomen.

Shit shit shit.

He tried to reach up for his radio, call someone, anyone, but he couldn’t. He was pinned. Completely cut off from his brothers all because he couldn’t move his arm. “HELP!” He tried screaming, making his voice hoarse very quickly as all he breathed back in was dust. “HELP!”

But no one heard.

-+-+-+-

It was hours before anyone got down to him. The collapse had happened due to the movement of everyone as they were rescued, and had addedstress to the already delicate debris, causing the collapse. Most of the area above Virgil had landed on top of him, meaning it took a few hours for it to safely be cleared, especially without the help from him using the Jaws of Life.

Once the rubble was cleared, John was able to squeeze himself in next to Virgil, and gave his older brother a quick once over. His helmet had a massive crack running through the plexi glass, and he could see blood behind it, mostly from Virgil’s nose from where it must have impacted with the glass. As John got a better look at the trapped and unconscious man, he found the rebar that had punctured Virgil’s abdomen, and the resulting blood staining his uniform. He moved lower down Virgil’s body, finding the second piece of rebar going through the engineer’s right thigh, but it had missed the femoral artery. 

If it had hit it, Virgil would be long dead.

A groan cause John’s head to snap back up. Brown eyes fluttered behind cracked glass, the cocoa unfocused and hazy. “J’hn?”

“I’m right here, Virge. Just stay still, you’ve got some puncture wounds.”

“Th’re a bit more than ‘puncture wounds’, John,” he replied, eyes squeezing shut before they rolled over to focus on John. “But you need to get out of here. All of this rubble is unstable.”

John vehemently shook his head before looking over the rubble pinning his big brother. “No way. I’ll get you out of here, no problem.”

“John, be careful, Virgil’s right,” Alan chirped in his ear. The young boy had been distraught over losing communication with Virgil when the rubble collapsed. He had quickly regained control of himself to help coordinate Virgil’s rescue, but the panic had overwhelmed him for a moment, and the helplessness. He could do nothing from Thunderbird 5, and he really felt for John with all the dangerous situations they got themselves into. “That pile is quite unstable and requires caution when moving anything.”

“F.A.B.”

Slowly, John began to move pieces of rubble, with some of the firefighters from the immediate vicinity coming in to help him with his endeavours. The raw heat in the air caused the firefighters to swap out regularly to stave off heat stroke and exhaustion, with a new person about every fifteen minutes. But John was able to continue working through the extreme heat, his suit keeping him cool and stabilising his temperature when it peaked too much.

Eventually, the rubble was cleared enough to move Virgil. BUt one thing was stopping them from doing so.

Well, technically two things.

The rebar were parts of the floor, or foundations, as they were very deeply rooted in the ground, and because Virgil got slammed on top of them, they weren’t able to cut them away from the floor to get removed in the hospital.

They had to be removed now. 

“Hey Virge, hit a slight complication with the whole saving you,” John informed him as he crouched beside his now helmetless head. “Those pieces of metal going through your body? We have to remove them now.”

Virgil’s eyes locked onto his. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Okay, then you need to hear this Johnny.” Once he was sure he had John’s attention, he reached up and took hold of John’s collar. “I am going to scream and thrash as you do this. You need a team of at least three people. One person at least to hold my arms away. But whatever I do, you cannot stop, you cannot let me go and just put me back down. You have to do this slowly, so when I scream and cry, do not speed up, and do not stop. You need to go slow and steady, okay?”

A steel had formed in Virgil’s eyes, a determination and a resignation to what was about to happen. “John? You ready for this? It isn’t going to be pretty.”

The redhead nodded in affirmation, but Virgil shook his own. “No, I need a verbal response.”

“Yes, I understand. I’ll make sure this happens properly.”

Virgil sighed, and winced from the pain, before settling his head back on the ground, arms dropping back to his sides. “Good. Okay, that’s good.” His eyes almost rolled back, but John shook him awake.

“No sleeping, not yet. Not until we have you secure. We still don’t know if you have a concussion.”

John organised the few remaining firefighters, and a paramedic stood off to the side with a backboard ready, along with bandages and saline for a quick wound sterilisation to try ward off the worst of the oncoming infections. Once everyone was ready, he looked down at Virgil. A cold sweat had broken out about ten minutes ago, and his skin had become clammy. He was definitely succumbing to shock, and fast. John offered the cloth he managed to wrangle from a paramedic, and Virgil nodded to him, taking the rolled up material into his mouth and between his teeth.

“Okay, on three,”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three!”

Everyone lifted, and John immediately clamped his hands down on Virgil’s arms so that they were pinned to his sides. A raw scream was ripped from the injured man, but it was muffled by the cloth. But it carried on for what seemed like much longer than the lift was. Pure pain and torment echoed in that scream, and John’s heart stuttered at the sound. 

Virgil writhed in his grasp, his arms fighting for freedom so that he could try and stop his own pain, to try and get away from the people seemingly causing the intense agony. But John held firm, pinning Virgil into a plank position. Even though Virgil was much stronger than John, and all of the brothers, the astronaut easily held him as Virgil’s muscles were weakened by the blood loss he had already suffered, and the possible dehydration he was facing after being stuck, sweating, in a hold for hours. 

The three men helping John lift Virgil helped to move the screaming man onto the backboard, and some helped strap him in while others cut bits of his uniform away, allowing the paramedic to quickly clean and dress the worst of the wounds for transport. John brushed his fingers through Virgil’s limp hair, but the man had finally passed out once he was completely lifted off of the metal bars. 

A small mercy for the injured engineer.

“We are go for transport,” the medic said, giving John a nod to grab a handle. Each of the people surrounding Virgil took a hold of a handle and helped lift and then walk him up out of the rubble through the path they had made over the hours. 

“Is he gonna be alright, John?” Alan asked in his ear, his voice bouncing around his helmet.

“Yeah, he’s strong. He’ll get through it.”

But looking over his brother, John wasn’t entirely convinced himself.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

John helped run Virgil over to the medic station, where they stabilised him so that he wasn’t going to bleed out on the journey to the nearest hospital. Once he was secure with oxygen hooked up and wounds dressed for the time being, he was transported into Thunderbird 2 with s team of medics watching over him as John jumped into the cockpit and booted the big bird up.

They approached the nearest hospital swiftly, coming in for a smooth landing in the field next to the hospital. John unbuckled from his seat and ran into the ed bay. The medics were preparing Virgil for transport to the hospital from TB2. “Status?”

“Blood loss has slowed down, but heart rate is on the decline, along with blood pressure and oxygen.”

“Let’s get him moving!” John directed, opening the ship’s bed bay door and then the hatch to the outside. They all worked together to transport Virgil from his ‘Bird to the hospital, the team battling against the curling snakes of grass attempting to wrap around the medics’ ankles and stop them from reaching their destination.

They reached the hospital in record time, but upon arrival, Virgil started to stir. 

“J-jhn?”

Ocean green eyes flicked down and met with the glazed cocoa of his big brother’s eyes. “Hey Virge, we’re just at the hospital. You got a bit Swiss cheesed by some rebar, but you’re going to be okay.”

“John?” His voice was weak, croaky and hoarse as though scraped from out of his throat. 

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Virgil’s core muscles spasmed and he groaned in pain, his eyes screwing shut through the agony. He tried to reach a hand up to John, but the redhead quickly caught the hand and lowered it back to the stretcher. “Virge, buddy, don’t move, okay? You can’t move, you’re very hurt.”

“H-rts,” he groaned again, rolling slightly on the stretcher. John gently lay him back down on his side, dragging a bitten of cry from the injured man.

“I know, I know. But we’re almost there. I’ll make all the pain go away in a bit, we just have to find you a room.”

A doctor came running in behind them, quickly directing them to a room. The medics easily transferred the rescue operative to the bed, and a new swarm of doctors and other medical professionals swarmed in. An IV was set up, along with a heart monitor and an oxygen mask. Before John knew it, his older either was being carted off to surgery to repair the damage done to him by the rebar.

John collapsed into one of the horribly uncomfortable waiting room chairs, his helmet sitting at his feet, and his head in his hands. The past few hours had gone by in a flash. One moment the floor was rumbling under him and his brother’s scream of terror was buried, and the next, said brother was being operated on to repair the damage done by the collapse. 

A hand landed on his shoulder and John’s head snapped up. Young blue eyes met his, and the younger boy sunk into the chair next to John, his blond haired head falling back against the wall behind him. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s in surgery now.”

“But is he going to be okay?”

And John was suddenly pinned by those sky blue eyes, so deep that he got slightly lost in them. So young and yet the boy had seen some of the worst that life had to offer. Blood and earth and pain haunted those eyes, yet they still held that small spark of innocence, of hope for a better tomorrow that youth brought and nurtured until one matured and realised that there would be no sudden help, no unseen hero swooping in.

They were meant to be those heroes, and yet look what happened to them. 

They got injured, brought to the brink of death and teasingly held over the edge for all to see, and for all to watch helplessly as they were dangled over an oblivion that no one could retrieve them from.

Again and again it seemed to happen to their family, and it showed in eyes that should still hold only the hope of youth and the innocence of one yet to see the world.

“I hope so Allie. God, I hope so.”

And John did what he never did. He hesitantly reached out his arm, draping it over the youngest’s shoulders and bringing him into his side. Alan readily went with the motion, collapsing against John, crying into his shoulder and trying to find a handhold on John’s suit.

“I heard h-him str-strug-gling, and I-I-I couldn’t d-do anyth-th-thing.”

“I know, shh, I know.”

“He has to be okay, he has t-to.”

And John tended to agree.

They couldn’t lose Virgil to that oblivion. He was held on the edge, a spider’s web keeping him connected, but he was so close to falling.

And John didn’t know what he would do if Virgil fell.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

48 hours. That’s how long it had been since Virgil came out of surgery. Since then he had woken a few times, but only briefly, and he was still dopey, barely able to speak, let alone coherently. John had sat with him the entire time, barely leaving the room to change out of his uniform. Scott had jumped on him to take five minutes and do just that.

He was back in 3.

And here he sat, since then, gripping Virgil’s hand, running a thumb along the back of it to map out the bones and tendons. Maybe to give himself some comfort too. Maybe.

Alan’s head was pillowed on John’s shoulder, and not for the first time in the past two days. Scott had dragged Gordon out earlier to get some sleep back at the hotel, and he would be coming back to get Alan and try to convince John. It won’t work.

John couldn’t leave Virgil here. 

Because if he wakes in that hotel room, how will he know if Virgil is still alive? How will he know that his big brother hasn’t been lost?

In reality, John knew that Virgil was starting to come out of the woods. Barring any unseen complications, of which there should be none, Virgil had an almost 100% chance of recovery. BUt it didn’t reassure the illogical part of John’s brain. It didn’t quiet the voice in the back of his head, whispering that Virgil was gone. He had died beneath the rubble and everything now was just a dream.

John shook his head, trying to dispel the thoughts. Virgil was okay. He had made it through the hours of surgery, the rescue, the transport, the everything. He was breathing and waking every so often. He would be okay. 

“John?”

Alan’s voice was small and sleep thick. John looked down at met bright baby blues, sleep glazed but alert. “Hey, Allie. You having a nap?”

“Yeah, I just got a bit tired is all.”

John sighed and glanced over to the couch in the corner. Kayo was stretched out across its length, her head tipped to the side and eyelashes laying over the bags under her eyes. “Maybe you should go with Scott back to the hotel?”

“But Virgil’s here.”

“I get that, but you’ll get some better sleep in a real bed than in one of these chairs.”

“Says the man who hasn't slept since this happened,” the youngest grumbled, but his eyes betrayed him, the concern almost overflowing from them. “It isn’t good, John. You need to look after yourself too. Birgil wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.”

“No he wouldn’t,” said a croaky voice from the bed. Both of the astronaut’s heads whipped around to see Virgil’s eyes slitted open. He smiled a pained but genuine smile, looking at his younger brothers. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” was John’s reply, tears welling to the surface. “How you feeling?”

“Like I’m on the good stuff.”

Alan stepped forward- when had he moved?- with ice chips for Virgil, who gratefully took a few into his mouth. “Please help me tell John to go back to the hotel and sleep,” the blond pleaded. 

“John, go sleep, at the hotel.”

“Not gonna happen. This is the most cognizant you’ve been in two days.”

“Alan, could you go grab him a drink of water?” Virgil requested. “And you, Kay.”

The two space brothers turned to see Kayo sitting upright on the couch, green eyes piercing Virgil, but stepping forth to retrieve Alan and drag him outside. Virgil looked back at John, his deep cocoa eyes attempting to find all of John’s well kept secrets that were closely guarded to his soul. “So, why haven’t you been sleeping?”

“I-I, well, it’s because-” he met Virgil’s eyes again and sighed, slumping back into his chair. “Because everytime I let myself drift off, all I can hear is you screaming and see your blood. It was everywhere and-and I don’t know what to do. Because you’re alive, but how do I know that you could be dead, this could all be-”

“John.”

John’s head snapped up to look at Virgil again, tears running down his pale cheeks. “John, it’s okay. Come here.”

He just about ran to Virgil, letting weak arms loop around him. Arms that were usually so strong now little more than kitten strength, and yet, still just as comforting as they had always been. He started sobbing in earnest, letting himself melt into the embrace but careful to harm the already injured man below him. “Shh, it’s alright, I’m okay John. I’m okay.”

The two brothers ended up falling asleep; Virgil’s meds and injuries catching up with him, and John’s debt to his body finally deciding to pay itself off. Kayo found them later, curled around each other, with John calmer than she had seen him since this whole mess started. Sometimes everything could be solved with a simple hug. 

Although she did take a few photos for blackmail purposes. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is from the 2019 Whumptober, but I am slowly posting them. I just forget to haha. I am hoping to participate again this year, though I can't promise anything. However, if you want to see any of the art I make hop on over to my Tumblr:  
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/taylart-x


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